News

The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its lineup for the Industry Selects program of films beyond the official fest lineup and available for worldwide acquisition as each gets an in-person screening for film buyers and industry execs.

Leading the selection is Christopher Leone’s Code 3, an action comedy that stars Rainn Wilson and Lil Rel Howery and is from Wayfarer Studios; Locked, David Yarovesky’s remake of the Argentinian action thriller 4X4 toplined by Anthony Hopkins and Bill Skarsgård; and Teemu Nikki’s 100 Litres of Gold, about two sisters famous for their Finnish farmhouse.

Other sales titles headed to Toronto as part of the Industry Selects program include Allan Ungar’s London Calling, where the director reteams with Josh Duhamel for an action comedy; Mehdi Idir’s Monsieur Aznavour from Playtime Group; Korean director Kim So-jin’s Noise; and Rich Flu, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead,...

How to Be Deadly

Written by Edward Riche & Nik Sexton

Directed by Nik Sexton

Canada, 2014

How to be Deadly is proof that in the right hands, you can make a great movie from a comedy sketch. The film is delightful, clever, and very funny.

Normally, the phrase – feature length comedy based off a YouTube persona – does not inspire confidence. After all, movies based on Saturday Night Live skits are usually worse than movies based on video games. How to Be Deadly is a welcome exception to this rule. The film joins Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers as one of the few comedies that are better than their source material.

How to Be Deadly, based on the 2012 short film of the same name, is the story of Donnie Dumphy (Leon Parsons), a fictional cult hero, Canadian YouTube sensation, and the LeBron James of mini bike riding. Throughout the film...

The 37th Toronto International Film Festival® will roll out the red carpet for hundreds of guests from the four corners of the globe in September. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Rian Johnson, Noah Baumbach, Deepa Mehta, Derek Cianfrance, Sion Sono, Joss Whedon, Neil Jordan, Lu Chuan, Shola Lynch, Barry Levinson, Yvan Attal, Ben Affleck, Marina Zenovich, Costa-Gavras, Laurent Cantet, Sally Potter, Dustin Hoffman, Francois Ozon, David O. Russell, David Ayer, Pelin Esmer, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Andrew Adamson, Michael McGowan, Bahman Ghobadi, Ziad Doueiri, Alex Gibney, Stephen Chbosky, Eran Riklis, Edward Burns, Bernard Émond, Zhang Yuan, Michael Winterbottom, Mike Newell, Miwa Nishikawa, Margarethe Von Trotta, David Siegel, Scott McGehee, Gauri Shinde, Goran Paskaljevic, Baltasar Kormákur, J.A. Bayona, Rob Zombie, Peaches and Paul Andrew Williams.

Actors expected to attend include: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jackie Chan, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Robert Redford,...